it's been ages that I posted here something or did a personal projects. I'm working in the 3D business for more than 15 years I guess :-) and I lost motivation to do own stuff..but now it's time to do something just for the fun of it.

The idea was something with a Pirate Theme....the idea started with this character:

But after a little while I liked the PiRATS idea and a collegue painted these nice rats:

So I'm going to build a ship for one of these characters....the ship is af course the "Gerry Bean"....well that is a little stupid but let's see where it's heading.

I tried to find some free space between jobs and started building the ship. It takes quiet long because I build it without any sketches. I'm checking pictures of the "Black Pearl" and that Aardman Pirate ship to see how these things work......

That is my progress so far:

Will need to add some further details and some parts are completely missing also I'm not to happy with the sails. Maybe I will do an animation so the sails have to be setuped completely different.

Here is a quick paint over with a few tip on how you can maybe improve the rigging.

The ropes that hold the yards up are called lifts, and travel through a block and head down to the deck where they get tied off.

The large ropes the run from the tops of the mast to the bottom of the mast in front are called stays, and are for reinforcement. The ropes that travel from the outside of the deck to the tops of the mast are called shrouds, and are also structurally integral. Ratlines are strung in between the shrouds to form ladders that can be used by the crew to access the upper rigging.

The triangular sail at the front is called a staysail, and attaches to a stay that travels from the top of the fore mast to the end of the bowsprit. There could also be a triangular sail at the back called a mizen sail.

I've found a nice technique to add thickness to a sail is to select the border edges of the sails, and hit convert poly edge to curve. You can then extrude a circle around the curve. Sails have a rope sewn into the edges.

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